Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone

Folly

While busy with these, I found roms for other handheld systems and those are working.
I have to see on my other pi4 what these systems are.
But I think you have them already working as they booted in Artwork.

Btw. there is bad output from mame -softwarelist

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ /opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware pockchal
gives on all games => supported="no">

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ /opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware zeebo
No software lists found for this system

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ /opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware gizmondo
No software lists found for this system

Folly

@dteam

I have these running :

gamecom
gamepock
pockstat

DTEAM

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

I have these running :

gamecom
gamepock
pockstat

Great !!! On my end, what I have been able to get to work as portable or keyboard less systems is listed here.

gamecom, gamepock and pockstat are in that list.
BTW , the artwork for pockstat is from me. I created that one (-; I always thought the Sony Pocket Station looked like a baby radio monitor. Strange design

Folly

@dteam

Yes indeed I should have known it right away.
But it was obvious as the artwork was already there :-)

We could just add these and more in the front-end menu in the menu option :
Handhelds / Plug & play

What do you think ?
Or is that too much ?

DTEAM

@folly
Yes, It would be great

Folly

@dteam

Ok, I will see what I can do.

Folly

@dteam

For now I added all the systems from your list, except nes_detach as this system can't be installed by the script.
link_to_commit

Perhaps we have to alter the name of the menu item and perhaps I have to take the same route as I now do with temporary mame database.
Then we could just pick out the lines we want to add without rewriting them.
Then we could also choose to install on systems or on descriptions.
(I am not doing that now, but we can perhaps do this in the future.)

DTEAM

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

Now you can install :

lr-mess/mame <-- make sure you do this first, otherwise you can't add systems !
lr-mess/mame systems
the handhelds by @DTEAM

Hi Folly, in your first post, maybe you could add a link to my gamelist for handhelds. It's my second post here.

Folly

@dteam said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

Now you can install :

lr-mess/mame <-- make sure you do this first, otherwise you can't add systems !
lr-mess/mame systems
the handhelds by @DTEAM

Hi Folly, in your first post, maybe you could add a link to my gamelist for handhelds. It's my second post here.

Done

Folly

I cleaned up my repository by moving many old files to the backup directories.

Now about the updates.

To prevent breaking things I left these files untouched :

generate-systems-lr-mess_mame-2v1.sh (basic script)
generate-systems-lr-mess_mame-2v1-ext.sh (basic script to generate in the ext directory)
add-mamedev-systems-test6_temp.sh (front-end)
add-mamedev-systems-test6-ext_temp.sh (front-end to generate in the ext directory)

As I was thinking it's better to move to newer versions.
So I made new versions based on 2v1 with adding the new stuff to it :

generate-systems-lr-mess_mame-2v2.sh
generate-systems-lr-mess_mame-2v2-ext.sh

I added the updates thoroughly and expect no issues ,at least I hope so.

I still have to do the front-end though, as I want to move to version 7 with the front-end, so be patient.

Here is the commit of the basic scripts :
link_to_commit

Multiple improvements to the basic scripts :

add translation "ai" lines to retroarch.cfg when installing a module-script
- Using hotkey "t" will translate the picture and pause the screen and translate
- Press "t" again to resume the game
- You might want to make a save-state before translating, if you experience a crash while translating
add cheats to the correct mame.ini when installing a module-script
- version 2v1 added this in the wrong mame.ini
- version 2v2 should be ok now
add game-specific-config runcommand lines in the emulators.cfg when installing a module-script
- if you load a game with the line containing "game-specific" then game-unique sub-directories are made with mame/lr-mess config files
- now it's possible to change the input per game in the mame-UI or lr-mess-UI
- to prevent conflicts between mame and lr-mess don't use the same config files, they get their own sub-directory
- config files for mame are save in /opt/retropie/configs/<RETROPIE-SYSTEM>/mame/<GAME>/<MAME-SYSTEM>.cfg
- config files for lr-mess are save in /opt/retropie/configs/<RETROPIE-SYSTEM>/lr-mess/<GAME>/<MAME-SYSTEM>.cfg
add sorting the emulators.cfg when installing a module-script
- implemented this because it can get a mess if there are more than 10 lines in the emulators.cfg file
- if a "default line" is present it always goes to the last line

I also added the first post as a readme file into the repository :
link_to_readme
This way we always have a backup and we can keep track of the changes done in the first post :
link_to_changes

Folly

@dteam @JimmyFromTheBay @dmmarti @RussellB @valerino

I added the new front-ends version 7 with the generator script 2v2 inside.
It should work OBB.
I only tested the front-end menu structure as ok.
I am confident the generator script will work ok as I tested that before seperately.

Here you can find what is new :
link_to_commit

Folly

@dteam

We can add a new "handheld".
I am trying out the Atari Portfolio.
(system = pofo)

This brings back some memories as I still have 2 originals in my storage boxes.

Never knew that mame could emulate this.
So I found the correct bios files and it worked although there is no sound yet.
It seems, in a mame forum, that this computer has been improved upon in mame0233.

Now the trouble was how to add games, this was a difficult one !
Normally you had to connect a dos or an atari-st computer to the portfolio and connect them with a parallel port.
Well, trouble, haha, how on earth can we get games to this computer.
Looked for virtual parallel port things and looked into mame on how to use ports with the outside world.
No real solution here.

Edit: With the information gathered in this post I made a script for it :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/create_atari-portfolio_roms

I found that you can add a ram card as a slot-device.
Now I could format this ram device and save a file to it.
But where is it saved ?
With mame it is saved here :
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame/nvram/pofo/ccma_ram/ccma_ram
How to load it as a -memc ?
Well, I was thinking, perhaps the ram card file structure is the same as the rom file structure then I can make a .rom file of it.
That worked, and it's off-course read_only as it is loaded as a rom now.

Now I still had to find a way to add games to the .rom file.
After a long search and peeking into the ram/rom file with hexedit if found that it could be some sort of a disk or hd image.
Later I found that it seemed to be a FAT12 image, using this linux tool it will display that it's a FAT12 structure (this is how you install):

sudo apt install disktype

I just didn't believe it at first, but you can just mount the image in linux.

mount the image in /mnt/ if you renamed your rom/ram file to fat12.img link_how_to_mount

sudo mount -o loop fat12.img /mnt/

Open the filemanager as "root" to add files to /mnt/
(we can only do this, if we are in a desktop enviroment)

sudo pcmanfm

(If not using a desktop enviroment we can use the command cp or extract zip files to the mount )

Add an autoexec.bat to /mnt/, so the rom will boot automatically from the drive "A:" , containing :

@echo off
<filename_to_run>

Unmount the image link_how_to_unmount

sudo umount /mnt/

Then rename fat12.img to folidash.rom for use with mame

This is the result with Folidash :

Folly

@dteam

Are you able to make artwork for the Atari Portfolio ?
For example only the screen.

DTEAM

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

Are you able to make artwork for the Atari Portfolio ?
For example only the screen.

To do that, I must be able to run it first. I'll try it this week. I'll add a system to my theme first.

I saw you have used pofo, I also see this "portfolio_rom_card" . What is the connection between these two?

Folly

@dteam said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

Are you able to make artwork for the Atari Portfolio ?
For example only the screen.

To do that, I must be able to run it first. I'll try it this week. I'll add a system to my theme first.

You will find it in "mame-0.231-merged".
Just make a dummy.rom file and it wil run into DOS.

I saw you have used pofo, I also see this "portfolio_rom_card" . What is the connection between these two?

The media that can be loaded is a portfolio_rom_card.
Never had one, but they look like this ( although this is a ram card ) :

Btw.
lr-mess works but the rom images do not as lr-mess is still an older version of mame, I think that's the reason that it fails to load.

Folly

@dteam
This is the game Phoenix :

DTEAM

@folly

Folly

@dteam

Totally awesome !
I will update immediately ;-)

DTEAM

@folly
Hi Folly. I need help to set games. Could you give me an example step by step with a game like tetris. My zip file is tetris.zip. Inside I have TETRIS.EXE and TETRIS.SCO .
Do I have to cut and paste your lines above in "putty" and everything will work.

Folly

@dteam

Hi,

I made a script for it.
I have to improve some things as it is not perfect yet,
but it should works for most games.

I am going to make a repository for it, asap.
I will let you know when it's online.

Paste your .zip game files into the same directory as the script.
Use the terminal.
Go to that script directory.
Be sure the script is executable with chmod u+x 123-pofo-roms.sh
Run it with sudo ./123-pofo-roms.sh
Now it will create .rom files from all .zip files.
Copy these .rom to the roms/pofo directory.

Edit :
This is the repository :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/create_atari-portfolio_roms

Fixed the issue of adding a .com or .exe to the autoexec.bat:

If 1 executable is found, then this file will be added to the autoexec.bat .
if more executable's are found, then you will be asked to type an executable which is added to the autoexec.bat .